Thread: Basic Sentence Structure

Can someone explain the basic structure, with sentence like:

The girl is strong
The girls are strong

I've seen samples with no verb and samples with a long verb "является".
Is the verb "to be" really that long?

Any info you could offer would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

David

Lesson on Russian sentence structure

http://masterrussian.com/aa060500a.shtml

Lesson on являться

http://masterrussian.net/mforum/viewtopic.php?t=4590

And no. To be is almost always left out.

The girl is strong - Девочка сильная
The girls are strong - Девочки сильные

The very являться/явиться is common in scientific and technical writing only.

I don't think I have ever heard a person actually say the word.

I regularly come across it in newspaper articles, especially in quotes attributed to government departments asked to comment on an issue.

And how about the hyphen? When should it be used?

Let me take a guess:
It's often omitted, but tends to be used in very simple sentences like the ones discussed above, where there is just a single clause with one subject and one adjective being used as predicate.

Девочка - сильная.

I really don't know, but I get the feeling it's more "correct" to use the hyphen than not in these cases, even if it is often omitted.

dunno, depends on who you're talking to i guess.

Originally Posted by waxwing

And how about the hyphen? When should it be used?

First of all, this is a dash, not a hyphen .

More to the point, there a general, broad rule that covers use of dashes in such sentences: the dash signifies a shift of intonation or a pause. It is actually the writer's choice, just like changing or not changing intonation for emphasis is the speaker's choice. The same sequence of words can be pronounced smoothly, with even intonation and speed, or with a pause introduced for emphasis.

"Девочка сильная" (just a simple statement)

"Девочки слабые. Эта девочка — сильная" (There is a short pause after "девочка").

Please note, that if both the subject and the predicate of a sentance are nounse, the dash MUST be used in most cases: "Девочка — спортсменка".

You can also check this thread and download the Rosental's handbook. It is a classic, I've had it for years, and it is definitely worth having. There is a whole section about the use of dash ("тире") in various situations.